Era

The comparisons were inevitable: He was a young left-hander with a mid-90s fastball and a curveball that froze hitters. So, on the day Clayton Kershaw was first promoted to the Dodgers' major league spring training camp in 2008, then-manager Joe Torre simply said what was on everyone else's mind. That Kershaw reminded him of Sandy Koufax. Kershaw was 19 years old. Torre tried to take it back, but his words were already out. "Oh, man," farm director De Jon Watson recalled thinking.

[Corrected Aug. 14, 3:48 p.m.] Absolutely. That's not to say he's currently the leading candidate, but he has put himself back in the hunt. It could yet happen. A few weeks ago when Kershaw was melting in the St. Louis heat and left with a 7-6 record and a 3.14 ERA, maybe it seemed it was getting out of reach. To that point, Kershaw was having a strong season, but something below the dominating 21-5, 2.28 season he turned in last year. But last season he won it with an incredible finish (13-1, 1.22 in his last 15 starts)

Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, as expected, named 23-year-old right-hander Anthony Ortega, who was 1-1 with a 9.88 earned-run average in three games at triple-A Salt Lake, to start tonight against the Seattle Mariners. Meanwhile, free agent Paul Byrd, a veteran who was 8-2 with a 3.46 ERA in the second half of 2008, continues to throw in Georgia and hope the Angels, who have four starters on the disabled list, change their mind about procuring outside pitching help.

The Seattle Mariners clearly have the two best pitchers in the American League West in Felix Hernandez, a right-hander who had a 19-5 record with a 2.49 earned-run average and 217 strikeouts last season, and Cliff Lee, a left-hander who won the Cy Young Award when he was 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA for the Cleveland Indians in 2008. A full house, the Angels will remind you, beats a pair of aces. "We might not have a bona fide No. 1 guy like CC Sabathia or Josh Beckett, but we have five bona fide No. 2 guys," Joe Saunders said.

Good pitching beats good hitting. It's as immutable a part of baseball physics as the spin on a curveball or the sink of a fastball. "Pitching wins championships," San Francisco Giants outfielder Aaron Rowand said. "It's cliche. But it's true. " Which is why the Giants, who have baseball's best pitching staff, will play past the end of the regular season Sunday while the Kansas City Royals, the second-best hitting team in the majors, are going to finish last in the American League West.

PHOENIX -- It would seem tempting for the Angels, given Ervin Santana's track record, to slot the right-hander in the fifth spot in the rotation. That way, Santana would avoid a season-opening, four-game series at Minnesota and make his first two starts of 2008 in Angel Stadium against Texas and Cleveland. Santana, remember, went 1-10 with an 8.38 earned-run average on the road and 6-4 with a 3.27 ERA at home in 2007, a season in which he was so erratic he was demoted to triple A in July for a month.

And so, once again, we come to sing in praise of left-hander Chris Capuano. It's an interesting little ditty. It doesn't typically come equipped with gaudy statistics, though he has some very good numbers. He is 9-2 with a 2.60 ERA, both figures the best of any regular member of the Dodgers' rotation. The Dodgers have been winning with pitching - their starting rotation's ERA (3.22) is the second lowest in baseball - which is why Capuano deserves to be an All-Star. “The numbers don't lie, right?

Under the swelling file of “Funny How Life Works,” you can add Brandon League's 2012 season. He started as the Mariners closer, lost the job before the end of May, was traded to the Dodgers before the nonwaiver trading deadline, had a 10.80 ERA in his first seven appearances for Dodgers and then finished closing out the ninth inning. Oh yeah, and on Tuesday he signed a three-year, $22.5-million deal to be the Dodgers closer. “You can't make this stuff up,” League said.

It began as an interview and at one point turned into an apology. "It was a tough year," closer Brian Fuentes said of his Angels debut in 2009. "I struggled. I really had to battle through some adversity. I think I could have done better across the board." Imagine how much worse Fuentes would have felt had he not led the major leagues in saves. From a rocky April, to a pair of spectacular meltdowns in late July and that fateful playoff home run to Alex Rodriguez, the 34-year-old Fuentes took a lot of heat last season for a guy who racked up 48 saves.

Not long ago pitcher Chad Billingsley was chatting with Don Mattingly when the Dodgers manager asked him: " 'Chad, do you ever get tired about answering the questions? Because I get tired of answering the questions,'" Mattingly recalled. "And he said, 'I'm used to it now.'" The recurring questions boil down to: Will Billingsley ever again come close to winning 16 games in a season as he did early in his career in 2008? . . . Or is he destined to remain the .500 or so pitcher he's been ever since?